tokyomewmewfanonfandomcom-20200216-history
User blog:ShokoraNeko/Kat's TMM OC Guide (WIP 1)
Rather than create a page, I decided to do a blog post instead, that way hopefully I won't have the incomplete guide on the front page every time it's updated where people will have no idea how far along it is. At any rate, I've been working on a Tokyo Mew Mew specific guide to OC creation. This is a work in progress still (at the moment it's only up to clothing), so I expect there to be things to add still. I warn that this is a fairly vague guide in a lot of sections, and the articles are more or less just guidelines. If you have any comments about adding/editing/removing sections from what's already here (meaning please don't suggest adding suggestions on character relations, powers, etc. yet since the guide hasn't even been written up to that yet), that would be greatly appreciated. At any rate, here is the guide in its current state of progress: =Section 1: The "ABSOLUTE DO NOT" Cases= Before this even starts, there are some things that should just not be made as characters. Period. (If your character is any of the following or the character you're working on is becoming any of the following, it's pretty much just better in the scrap heap and start anew.) '1. Your Character is, in all Essence, A Character That Just Isn't Yours.' Let me elaborate more on what I mean by that. When I say a character that isn't yours, I mean, don't take a character from *insert other series here* and put them in Tokyo Mew Mew (or whatever your fanfiction is.). This DOES NOT 'mean it's alright to take someone else's TMM OC either (Or their OC for any other fandom, for that matter)! If you don't get what this means, let me give you an example character: Fijiko is an honors student at Imperial High and is studying to become a lawyer like her mother was. She doesn't talk to people at school that much and a lot of times people mistake her for a boy and make fun of her because of her poor-looking clothes. She is infused with the DNA of a great horned owl and transforms into Mew Spring. '' Short, yes, but you get the message. Even though I didn't say "and one day she accidentally broke a vase and then was forced to act as a host to pay off her $800,000 debt," changed her last name, and said that she went to Imperial High (which is the High School in my fan fiction), it's extremely obvious that it's Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran put into my Tokyo Mew Mew fan fiction (unless of course you haven't watched Ouran High School Host Club). If I posted this, I'd no doubt have people screaming at me that my OC was a Haruhi knock-off! It's fine to be inspired by a character, (In all honesty, Shokora's disliking of girly clothes inspired by Hibiki Gahana from The Idolm@ster.) but don't just clone the character into your series. Note: Crossovers are completely different. If you do something like take Usagi from Sailor Moon and make her a mew in a crossover fanfic (where she isn’t your OC, but a character from a non-Tokyo Mew Mew canon), that’s fine- just try to prevent her (or him) from seeming too out of character. What this is saying is don’t tweak a character and claim it is as yours. '2. Your Character is Just an Amalgamation of Multiple Already Existing Characters For this one, we'll start with an example character first, then do the elaborating. [Ichigo Midorikawa is a bright young girl and the new leader of the Tokyo Mews. She's usually really perky and upbeat and she likes to go on dates with her boyfriend. When she gets too excited, her ears and tail pop out and if she gets kissed she turns into a cat. When she goes in the water, her porpoise tail comes out and she turns into a mermaid. She can transform into Mew Strawberry whenever she wants, but if she’s near the water, she turns into Mew Lettuce instead.] If you seriously think that's not just putting Ichigo and Lettuce together, then you have a lot to learn about character creation! This doesn't just apply to Tokyo Mew Mew characters either. This applies to characters of ANY fandom. It doesn't matter if you take characters who aren't from Tokyo Mew Mew or they're from two separate fandoms. Just because you put the two characters together, that doesn't make them yours, and if that's what you did with your character, there's just no hope. These are the only two cases I've ever come across where I do believe you just should not make them and can't save the character no matter how much work you put into them, and the only solution is to just scrap it and call it dead, because, well, it's just not your character that you're writing. =Section 2: Actually Creating the Mew.= If you actually want your own '' ‘’original’’''character, and you do take into consideration their Sueness level (if you will) and originality, well, prepare for a long read here. These are the steps that are pretty standard with every mew. Note: You don't have to complete them in this order, this is just my preferred order. If you prefer to do step 5 first and step 2 last, that’s fine. Call it the “Commutative Property of Character Creation.” Step 1: Picking their Theme Color(s) This is usually my first step when I make a mew. I decided on what colors for her to be since their name is usually based off of that, their mew outfit consists mainly of it, and you usually want an animal that matches that color. I don't think I need to elaborate here. It's pretty self-explanatory- just pick a color or colors. Keep in mind, you do have to find something to call their mew form that will go along with that color. Step 2: Naming Them It's pretty obvious that they need a name! Mews usually have their first name for their mew name. (I.E. Lettuce Midorikawa becomes Mew Lettuce, Pudding Fong becomes Mew Pudding, etc.) Although it isn't uncommon for mews in the fanon to have mews whose first names somehow relate to their mew name (I.E. Stella means “Star” and she becomes Mew Star Fruit, Dracen means "Dragon" and she becomes Mew Dragon Fruit, etc.), as well as just regular, every-person names. There is a list of things to remember with this one that, well, don't make them Sue-ish, but it looks like you really didn't put any thought into them. 'Don’t have their mew name be "Mew whatever animal they're infused with here!'" If your mew is infused with the DNA of a red wolf, please don't have their mew name be "Mew Red Wolf" and this applies to every animal! It makes it look like you only spent half a second picking their mew name! 'Don’t Give them A 5+ Part Name' There are a few cultural exceptions, but the majority of the time, people have only a 2-4 part name, and this being just fictional characters, you can easily get away with only coming up with a first name and a last name for them (unless it’s going to be used for something- be it school roster, quick or running gag, or any other reason.) Long story short, your character should not have a name like “Dianna-Antoinette Marie-Lee Elizabeth VonHouser.” Why would they even need a name that long other than maybe to stall the bad guys because of how long it takes to even say their name? (Seriously, imagine how much time it would take the villain to just say “We meet again, Dianna-Antoinette Marie-Lee Elizabeth VonHouser!” There’s probably full fight scenes that take less time!) 'Avoid foreign culture names!' This isn’t a 100% never do (this is coming from the child of an Asian guy with a German last name), but I highly recommend it be avoided. I’ve noticed in general that there are a lot of girls with strange names that just really don’t make sense. I.E., if a character is Japanese and from Japan, her name shouldn’t be “Krista Martinez” or something else entirely non-Japanese. 90% of the time, a person is going to have a name from whatever their culture is. I.E. Stella Hernandez is from a Mexican Heritage. Bu-Ling Huang (whose name is written often as Pudding Fong) is Chinese. Your character should have a name constant with their heritage unless there’s a good reason (this is being written by a girl who’s half Asian) such as them being adopted. Mind you, it isn’t too uncommon for characters who are the children of immigrants to have mixed names. (I.E. the name of a girl whose parents are from Japan and moved to the United States could have a name like “Amy Tanaka.”) 'Avoid making your character’s name completely unpronounceable due to the way it’s written.' Your character, if for no other reason than it’s easier on the readers, shouldn’t have a horribly unpronounceable name just because of how it’s written. (If your character has a foreign name from their heritage that people of other cultures find hard to pronounce, that’s different.) I’m all for tweaking spellings to be a little more original, but there are some times when it just makes it unpronounceable! I.E. “Xchyler” is a heck of a son of a gun to try to pronounce. Why not save everyone the headache and just have your character’s name written as “Skyler” or even “Skylar?” Basically just make sure if your character has an alternate spelling people actually know what it’s supposed to be. 'Avoid giving your character a strange Romaji name' There is a fine line between when using the Romanized pronunciation is cute and when it’s just a headache. First off, just because google translate (or whatever translator you’re using) translates “Strawberry Parfait” as “Sutoroberīpafe” doesn’t mean that’s an entirely different thing. The latter is just a Romanization of the Japanese pronunciation of the former (Basically, how a Japanese person would pronounce “Strawberry Parfait.”) I believe the line is when it starts being unpronounceable. I think we can all read “Retasu” or “Purin” or “Shokora” pretty well, but (using that example) “Sutoroberīpafe” takes me a minute to figure out what it is- and I’m fairly used to reading Romaji. Subsequently, please note that if your character’s name is XXXX no YYYYY, then that has the literal translation of YYYYY of XXXX (I.E. if your character’s name is “Ichigo no Hana” then their name will literally mean “Flowers of Strawberry.”) 'Avoid Cliché names' Cliché names do not mean having their last name be a common last name (Like Martin, Smith, Adams, Lee, Garcia, Sato, etc.). Cliché names mean names that are overly common heroine names that ultimately just sound a little cheesy (for lack of better word). While a mew infused with the DNA of a wolf and named “Luna Lupin” might sound nice at first, it’s going to probably get very old, very quick, esepcially when the name just screams out "main protagonist!" or "Main antagonist!" Note: Ignore this if it’s some type of code name or nickname. Those tend to be something along the lines of this. Also, there is the rare case where this is a joke in-series where people point out how much like an action hero name that sounds or how strange of a name it is. Step 5: Physical Description Alright, I think it’s clear we can’t all draw, and I’m not going to yell one bit about that. All honesty, I'm horrible. However, when you make a character, you don’t just describe them with pictures; you also describe them with words. This part is just involving the physical description of the character, meaning body type, height, weight, etc. 'Not Everyone has a ''Perfect Figure! I swear this is one of the hardest things to keep under control. Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but we don’t all have a perfect 36-24-36 hourglass figure. Just doesn’t work that way. However, just because someone doesn’t, doesn’t mean that they have the figure of a pumpkin. Typically figures fall into the following categories: *Hourglass Considered the “ideal” figure. Even hips and bust with a noticeably defined waist. *Straight/Rectangle Little to no difference between the bust, waist, and hips. *Pear/ Triangle Largest at the hips and noticeably smaller at the waist and bust. *Apple Largest at the waist and smaller on the bust and hips. '' *Full Bust/Inverted Triangle '' Largest at the bust with smaller hips and waist. '' Although there isn’t too much actual limitation, it’s a good idea to be realistic when picking a figure. What I mean by that is that the body type should suit the character. Hourglass figures are rare, so the same applies to fiction usually (if the writer wants it to be a little realistic). Usually only a healthy model (not a skeleton with padding) or a girl who seriously devotes time into managing her body is going to have one. Just because a girl doesn’t have the hourglass figure doesn’t mean they’re fat pigs (much as I think the media would like us to believe). For example, gymnasts of all kinds are typically thin and usually they don’t have hourglass figures though and are instead usually more of a straight figure. There really isn’t much limit other than not everyone in your series should have hourglass figures. 'Give them a realistic weight! Although it’s relatively unimportant usually, it’s a good detail to know about your character. If you’re going to say what your characters’ weight is, I’d recommend calculating their BMI. I know now you’re wondering “What’s a BMI and how do I calculate it?” A BMI, in case you’re curious, stands for “body mass index.” It’s a number on a chart determining if a weight is healthy or not, in short. Since I doubt anyone is going to want to hand calculate it, http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ this is a good BMI calculator. It’s fairly straightforward. Now, the “healthy” range is pretty large, so you should have a decent idea on where your character is in that range presuming they’re of a healthy rate. Some things to keep in mind are: *Muscle weighs more than fat, so if your character does anything that seriously exercises them, even if they’re thinner than someone else, they could still weigh more. *Bone size plays a factor in weight. If you have thin bones, you’re going to have less weight from them than someone who has larger ones, just simply because bone is heavier than skin and muscle Step 6: Outfit Provided you are going to give your mew their own unique outfit, there really aren’t too many rules. They’re mew outfits. There really isn’t a rule for what’s crossing lines (so long as it’s not completely off the wall and it doesn’t even look like a mew outfit). There is one thing that really needs to be remembered though: Make sure they can move as a mew! It’s safe to say that none of the original mews’ outfits were going to pass any school’s dress code, so why the skimpy outfits? In most series, I’d say fanservice and that’s about it. Mews, however, have an actual reason for wanting such exposing outfits: they’re much easier to move in! Think about how often we saw them doing backflips, high kicks, and 180 turns. Less covering outfits make doing such movements much easier. It’d be exponentially harder to try doing those movements in a knee-covering dress or skirt or a pair of jeans. The only thing I recommend for you to do if you’re designing a Mew outfit is to make sure they can move if they’re wearing it. Mew outfits aside though, they’ll probably have regular clothes too. To which case, some simple (relatively common sense) guidelines should be used. Make their clothes age appropriate Save for maybe Ichigo’s school uniform, the original mews all wore clothes that were relatively modest, and they weren’t flashing their midriffs or wearing skirts that were at a near indecent level (save for the mew outfits, explained above). Although in several western countries, we’re fairly accepting of things like miniskirts and tube tops, typically in eastern countries (Including Japan), this is frowned upon much more- this should definitely be kept in mind for stories set in Japan or any other eastern country (As well as certain parts of the west). Note: This does not entirely apply to swimsuits, gymnastic leotards, cheerleading uniforms, or any other clothing that is inherently more exposing. School uniforms aren’t on that list and are actually 'not'as exposing as animes tend to make them out to be, and are typically more to the opposite. This also does not apply if a character is notably flirtatious. Make sure the clothes match the character It should be no surprise that who you are influences what you wear. You should be able to justify your character’s normal clothing with some kind of reason, be it their choice or their background. (I.E. they dress like a princess because their mother makes them, they like t-shirts and jeans because they find them more comfortable, they have old tattered clothing because they don’t have the money for new clothes, etc.) Category:Blog posts